Greetings, everyone!
Ah, it's all starting to come together. Plenty of chapters still need to be created, but thanks to the work of this last week, I'm now seeing all the individual parts work in unison, just like I talked about in the previous progress report.
I have implemented Anna's first chapter and done an audio overhaul of Michael's. Right now, I'm replacing a couple of renders I'm unhappy with in Michael's chapter, and then I'll move on to one of the ...
2024-02-02 15:05:53 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Ah, it's good to be back in Visual Studio Code, scripting this game. Some of the concepts I've been building up to are starting to take shape now, such as in the above screenshot (work in progress and very likely to change). Let's talk about what's going on in it.
Unlike Long Live the Princess, Supermodel will often feature multiple main characters communicating with each other, and they won't always be in the same room. Obviously, there are things like cell p...
2024-01-26 20:11:12 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
It's been a week of sprite and environment work, as expected. ANBC News is now properly set up to support any scene in the story that takes place in that building. In particular, I've added the station's green room (which isn't green), a room we'll see from time to time as the story progresses. In this room, people rest, prepare, and apply makeup before going on set. The first time you'll see it will be in Anna's opening chapter due to her being scheduled to appear ...
2024-01-19 20:43:26 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
As mentioned last week, I had just caught the flu at the time, having a high fever and generally being unable to do much of use. With the flu being the flu, I took this week to recover, which means I have done next to no work since the last time I wrote. This is clearly not ideal, and I absolutely detest making so little progress when you people so generously support my work. You deserve better, and yet, there is little I can do when I catch a disease.
I...
2024-01-12 16:22:29 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
For fuck's sake! I managed to get one day in at the office this week before I got sick again. It looked perfectly manageable at first, with only a sore throat, sniffles, and other typical symptoms of the common cold, so I kept working as usual (albeit slower). And then, yesterday, the fever hit me, spiking equally as high as it did while I had covid, and I realized that I've got the flu. I did do a test since I was afraid I had covid yet again, but thankfully, that ...
2024-01-05 15:27:38 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Oh boy, I almost forgot that I'm introverted, which is a horrible combination with Christmas. Family celebrations are fun and all, but I'm always completely spent in between each gathering, leaving me a useless lump of meat throughout the entire Christmas week. I know this, yet I somehow managed to forget in the lead-up to Christmas. Bah.
Not my most effective week then, despite me building expectations for the opposite ahead of time. I have managed to get fur...
2023-12-29 18:31:09 +0000 UTC
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Merry Christmas, everyone!
It's that time of the year when a lot of people gather with their families and loved ones to celebrate the end of the year. While I had hoped to have more to celebrate this time, specifically the first version of Supermodel, we'll have to make do.
As you can see from the attached image, even the superheroes of STALWART (and their boss) like to unwind and get casual during the festive season. This shot took me most of the day to set up and render, but it'...
2023-12-25 20:20:46 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
It's almost Christmas! Things are calming down here before the festivities, allowing me to tackle the challenges I've faced with the Supermodel renders. And boy, I've had some really fresh challenges to deal with this past week, for sure.
First of all, let's talk about the elephant in the room, namely the image above. I have finished all the renders for Michael's second chapter now, which will likely remain the most technically demanding chapter in this update...
2023-12-22 18:56:48 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Christmas looms close, which means I get time off from my day job. Of course, this means grabbing some well-deserved rest, but this year, I want to put some serious time into Supermodel as well, especially with the setback from covid these past few weeks. I still have a cough and slight sniffles, but the sickness has almost entirely left my body. Also, my day job had to take priority this week because of essential tasks that needed to be closed before the holidays, ...
2023-12-15 20:09:56 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
I'm still not entirely well after my fight with covid, but I'm getting there. In fact, I've regained enough of my strength that I've been able to put in some serious work on the renders for one of the most complicated (if not the most complicated) chapters in the first version, and they look great! You can see one of the images from this scene at the top of this post, which should go a long way to demonstrating just how much the image and environment detail have imp...
2023-12-08 09:27:45 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Sadly, I've only partially recovered from covid. The fever disappeared on Monday, but I'm still not entirely well. In particular, I'm incredibly lethargic and sleepy, and I've got the infamous covid "brain fog" that should hopefully resolve itself soon. I've been back at my day job for most of the week, working from home, but this has left me with no leftover energy to work on Supermodel. In other words, I have made no progress on game development this week, which i...
2023-12-01 12:23:13 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
This update will be really short for reasons that will soon become clear, the same reasons that caused me to forget to post it yesterday.
First of all, the script for the first release of Supermodel is now complete, which means that I can move straight into rendering and implementing these scenes. I have also spent some time preparing sound effects, which I have made serious investments into so that even this aspect of this game will be elevated among its peer...
2023-11-25 07:15:19 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
The script for the first version is almost done. I ended up counting 15 chapters of varying length in this version, and I'm now wrapping up the 14th, with the 15th being very short. The early chapters do a lot of the lifting here, with the worldbuilding and story/character setup requiring a lot of space. In these last few chapters, events settle into smaller chunks that aren't quite so monumental in scope, so they get shorter. I expect the chapter lengths will vary ...
2023-11-17 16:49:30 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
34,000 words. That's apparently how much story I've already written for Supermodel, it seems. It was shocking to see how lengthy even the game's first version is getting. For comparison, Long Live the Princess is slightly above 350,000 words, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is about 77,000, and A Game of Thrones is roughly 293,000. And I'm not even done writing for this version yet. This is going to get chunky.
Since last week, I have written one new ful...
2023-11-10 14:30:06 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Seven chapters are now done, with only a few remaining. The one that I'm about to start writing will be particularly interesting because it marks the first time in the story that you get to see how the sexy stuff will work and what role it serves in the overall narrative. You don't get all the puzzle pieces right away, but you get enough to understand what the game expects you to do. The story has been very dark and serious up until this point, so the tonal shift sh...
2023-11-03 15:55:33 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
This week has been all about writing, and boy, am I getting into the swing of things. Seeing all my ideas go from mere concepts to actual dialogue and narration is incredibly rewarding. For the first time, Supermodel's story is starting to feel real to me.
So far, I have written six whole chapters for the first version of the game. Most of them are pretty long and yet short enough that you shouldn't miss the save function. I have discussed this before, b...
2023-10-27 14:55:40 +0000 UTC
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"Your wallet. Give me your fucking wallet!"
One hand grips the knife, trembling, while the other reaches for her.
She raises her own hands. Slowly, deliberately, one hand grasps the buff she wears over the lower half of her face while the other removes her shades. As her face is revealed, the man's gaze is transfixed by the impossibility of it, by the terrifying implications. The sight drains the blood from h...
2023-10-20 11:43:21 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
I've been writing this past week. Writing and doing a little bit of experimental composing, but mostly writing. And I'm really starting to get into the flow here, despite how brutal the early parts of a new story can be to realize.
When you start a new story, you not only have to get it off the ground with a compelling hook, but you also need exposition to introduce the setting without making it feel dry or even expository (ironically). Then there are the char...
2023-10-13 15:48:04 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
It's that time of the week again, and you're surely expecting me to write more about how I've been composing music, right?
Well, sure, I've been doing some of that, mostly just trying to find inspiration for some of the few remaining tracks I will need in the first update, but nothing has really blown me away yet. Jumping between concepts with no clear idea in mind can get frustrating, so I decided to change things up a bit.
And so I started writing agai...
2023-10-06 19:47:19 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
This past week has not exactly been eventful. Beyond creating the 4K render Grandmaster supporters received yesterday, my efforts were spent finishing up the orchestral musical theme I discussed last week. It didn't turn out how I expected when I first started it, mainly because the orchestral sound became much more realistic than I thought it would, allowing me to be more subtle in its performance. Orchestral instrument libraries really have come a long way in thes...
2023-09-29 13:50:23 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
First things first, let's talk about the attached music preview. Listen to it now, if you can.
The preview is a small part of one of the new tracks I have composed and finished for Supermodel, called Shards of Destiny. This track comes in two variants, one for tension and one for action. This is the action variant, and it will be strongly associated with an antagonist you will get introduced to in the first version. With this, you have a small idea of what I'v...
2023-09-22 18:01:38 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
As mentioned before, I'm now entirely focused on the music for the first version of Supermodel, trying to keep the ball rolling while it still has momentum.
The two tracks I discussed last week are complete and fully working in the game. I'm delighted with how they turned out, especially the orchestral elements.
Since then, I have both started AND finished an entire track. This one is special because it is a classical piece of music you've all hear...
2023-09-15 16:10:36 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
I'll keep things short this week since there's not much to say. As mentioned last week, I'm now focusing almost exclusively on the music for the first version of Supermodel, trying to stay "in the zone" and maximize my efficiency. This also means that there's not much for me to talk about.
But to sum up the most notable developments since the last update, I have now more or less finished the track I was working on. However, this one does double duty since it c...
2023-09-08 15:23:29 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Because tomorrow is the first of the month, and supporters on Patreon often run into trouble with their subscriptions on their day, which causes issues with access to posts, I'm posting this progress report one day early. We'll be back to the regularly scheduled posts next week.
Since last week, I have implemented the game's main menu and made it possible to not only start but also play the entirety of Michael's initial prologue chapter. The game's prologue/in...
2023-08-31 14:34:54 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Since last week, I have finished writing and illustrating the scene from the prologue chapter I discussed in the previous progress report. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and eagerly looking forward to seeing it in the game later. I have also made some progress on the music for that scene, but it hasn't been a priority.
I also spent significant time and effort working on the character arcs and backstories for the most important women you'll meet in thi...
2023-08-25 16:39:28 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
I'm still getting my sea legs, so to speak, as I transition from Snapshot to Supermodel. Starting a new story with new characters in equally new environments is a far cry from what I spent most of my time working on during the later stages of Long Live the Princess's development. I barely even had to think about that stuff with Snapshot. Furthermore, I'm far too aware of how influential these early parts will be on the story as a whole, so I need to get them right.<...
2023-08-18 18:30:29 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
It's been a little while since the last progress report. If you're not at the $5 level or above, you might not know why, and for that, I apologize. A few weeks ago, I finally released version 2.0 of Supermodel Snapshot, which was quickly followed up by a hotfix and then, a little while later, by the current version 2.1. My modus operandi is to post a progress report precisely one week after the latest release unless that would be very close to another release. In th...
2023-08-11 19:14:33 +0000 UTC
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UPDATE 2.1.0: This is a balance and bugfix update with an important new experimental game mechanic. See below for patch notes.
It's done!
Welcome to Supermodel Snapshot version 2.0, a complete overhaul of the game. For those new to Supermodel's development, Snapshot is a prototype of the card game you will see in the full Supermodel: Defenders of Desire later this year. Actually, "prototype" is selling it short at this point. Snapshot has grown f...
2023-07-24 05:25:21 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
It's vacation time! Well, from my day job, anyway. And that means more time to work on Supermodel, though I try to get some relaxation between the bouts of frantic coding.
Since last week, I have created and rendered all the images for Seraphim's photo shoot and put them in the game. But that pales compared to the importance of what I have spent my time on since then: the menus!
Yes, menus. That probably doesn't sound exciting to any of you, but it is vi...
2023-07-18 14:59:43 +0000 UTC
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Greetings, everyone!
Let's start with today's big news: In addition to Vanguard, version 2.0 of Supermodel Snapshot will also let you photograph Seraphim. She comes with her own graphics, theme song, cards, scenario(s), and distinct gameplay style. The above image is the first picture from her opening scenario. Best of all? Almost everything I just mentioned is already in the game and fully working.
All right, moving on to the actual progress report...
2023-07-11 13:50:57 +0000 UTC
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